Alice Fontana (La Rochelle Université, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Labex ICCA)

Testing alternative consumption experiences of Cultural Goods: an experiment on Ancient Egypt

Venue: Campus Luigi Einaudi, room 3 D1 01

Abstract: Cultural heritage institutions started to use new information technologies to valorise cultural heritage and improve audience development (Bakhshi & Throsby, 2010). In parallel, these technologies transform the way we access information and can change our preferences and the consumption choice set (Pott,2014). Following Lancaster’s new consumer theory (K. Lancaster, 1966 a ; K. Lancaster, 1966 b), we want to investigate which characteristics may lead consumers to prefer the new immersive cultural products/service. With the aim of better understanding how the preferences and choice sets are transformed, the experiential design aims to explore and test the comparative effectiveness of three different ways of enjoying cultural heritage – physical visit, video game and virtual reality – in the context of Ancient Egypt. Our goal is to understand how individual, cultural and technological characteristics influence the economic and cultural value associated with each modality, contributing significantly to the literature on the comparison between digital and physical experiences by investigating empirically the specific characteristics that distinguish them.